NANTERRE, FRANCE (March 14, 2:15 p.m. ET) -- French auto components supplier Faurecia SA is building a new plant in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, continuing its recent rapid expansion in the country.

The Nanterre-based company, one of the world’s largest auto parts makers, said in a March 7 announcement that the 215,000-square-foot factory will make components for a new auto assembly plant being built by France’s PSA Peugeot Citroën and China’s Changan Motors nearby in Shenzhen.

Three Faurecia units – interior systems, seating and emissions control technology – will be in the new Dongguan factory, which is expected to start operating by the end of the year.

The investment comes as the company last year announced a series of factory expansions in China, including three facilities elsewhere in Guangdong province, in Foshan. Those factories will work for a new joint venture auto assembly plant in Foshan between Volkswagen Group and China’s First Automobile Works.

Those three Foshan factories are being built as joint ventures with one of its Chinese partners, Changchun XuYang Industry (Group) Co. Ltd., based in Changchun, Jilin province.

Faurecia also announced a joint venture with China’s Ningbo Huazhong Plastic Products Co. Ltd. in early 2011.

The two companies formed a 50/50 joint venture to use an existing Huazhong factory in Changchun, Jilin province, to make automotive exterior parts and carry on existing Huazhong business making car bumpers for the VW Passat made in Changchun by the joint venture between Volkswagen Group and China’s First Automobile Works.

Faurecia said it would manage that Changchun factory and would bring in state of the art industrial processes. Huazhong is based in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

The French company said in mid-2011 that it employed 6,000 people in China, at 25 factories and four research and development centers.